Multicultural Jesus

According to Michael Spencer, Jesus says Cross the Line:

The Galilee of Jesus’ day was a multicultural place. To function in his world, Jesus was constantly confronted with the need to deal with other cultures, other languages, other customs and comfort zones. Into this world, the Pharisees, zealots and Essenes had put forward their own options for dealing with those who were different. Those options ranged from asserting a new encyclopedia of rules, declaring “clean and unclean” zones/persons, withdrawing into subculture ghettos of their own and declaring those who were different worthy of violent response.

As a result, some of the most controversial and incarnationally revealing things Jesus did were simply actions of eating with sinners, touching lepers, speaking to women, walking through communities and taking a public stand against the religious ghetto-think of his time......
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If there is anything more important than this in the current situation, I don’t know what it would be. Look at the difference between Jesus and other religious leaders on just this one issue, and then wonder how Christians have come to be some of the most ghetto ensconced, subculture defending, behind-the-walls-of-the-sanctuary people on the planet.